Dear Editor,

I attended the Belmont county commissioners meeting, April 19, 2023. As the Commissioners read the new business, it was announced that the county will be moving forward with building a desperately needed, new animal shelter. I have been waiting and praying for this decision for years. I was appalled to learn that absolutely no questions were asked and no interest was shown about this endeavor.

Instead, this joyous announcement was overshadowed by a group of disgruntled volunteers, previous employees and their friends. Their spokesperson read an extremely lengthy letter describing the importance of being allowed to market our dogs. I feel our Shelter does a great job of marketing our animals. They utilize Petfinder, Facebook, Instagram and sometimes TikTok.

A lady from Texas asked our Commissioners how often they visit our shelter. Let me say that when we had a water breakage and severe damage on Christmas morning, J.P. Dutton was there to see what we needed. None of those volunteers were present.

Someone from another rescue informed the commissioners that they should hire a humane officer and the fines collected would be lucrative.

I truly wish that was possible, but the county cannot legally do that. A humane officer can only be hired by a Humane Society.

An employee from another shelter raved about the large outdoor exercise area that her volunteers built. I think that would be a great goal for the volunteers to accomplish for Belmont County.

I am at the shelter 3 to 5 hours a day. As I looked around the room of about 40 people, I only recognized three or four who come to walk dogs about once a month. There was no one in the room who ever does fundraising, adoption days, laundry, cleaning kennels, scooping the yard, feeding or watering or transporting.

It was also stated that we should make it easier for people to adopt our precious animals. If they don’t meet the requirements on our applications, they shouldn’t have a pet. It doesn’t need to be easier for an animal to fall into the wrong hands.

Last month the shelter was severely slammed on Facebook for euthanizing six dogs. These dogs lived in cages, bathrooms, storage rooms with no windows for as long as two years, going crazy. Who would want their pet to live like that? These dogs were advertised on every form of social media. Everyone read their pathetic stories. Everyone hoped they would get a home. Everyone felt bad for them. But no one adopted them!

Our shelter staff did not fail these animals as they were accused. One of our previous employees was a certified dog trainer, and she spent many hours trying to rehabilitate them. These dogs have bitten people, killed cats or other dogs. Their owners were the ones who failed them. They should not be breeding dogs such as pitbulls to never be socialized or to be used for dog fighting. They end up unwanted in a shelter with no hope for a home because no one wants to take the chance of their children or other pets being hurt.

We were also criticized for not utilizing other rescues. I can assure you we tried many other rescues and no one would take these dogs.

And yet, when we took five dogs to a rescue in Canada, we were criticized for that! These dogs were long term residents of our shelter and no one in Belmont County adopted them in spite of marketing. I was involved in that long journey and believe me, when we arrived and approved adopters were waiting with leashes to take these dogs to loving homes, I cried! It was a joyous occasion and for anyone to criticize that, they are just selfish. It doesn’t matter where our dogs are getting homes as long as it is a safe, loving home.

I know volunteers can be very beneficial to our animals. Our dogs love that extra attention and are hoping for a walk with someone. Unfortunately, some are confusing volunteering with interfering. It serves no useful purpose and it needs to stop.

In addition to fundraising and marketing to find homes for our animals, one of the shelter’s main priorities is the safety of our animals and employees. So once again, I am very thankful that we will be eventually getting a new shelter. I invite everyone to join me in doing everything we can to make this long overdue project possible.

Candace Fleagane

Executive Director

Belmont County

Cat Stray Shun

Morristown